Did you ever have those hyper-realistic bed-wetting dreams as a kid? The ones where you wake up convinced you’ve peed yourself and start feeling around the sheets only to find it was a dream. Like that isn’t the worst idea ever. Yes, of course, I want my hands to be covered covered in pee. That’s exactly how I want this story to end. But then again, I suppose if you’ve peed the bed, you’d know instantly because you’d be in a puddle of your own making. And the very next thing you’d do would be to call out “Muuuuumm!” Ahh childhood, isn’t it grand? I suppose it’s even “better” if you’re the parent that has to clean all that mess up (not that I’d know, being quite happily child free for nigh on 34 years now ;)).

Anyway, as usual, I’ve gone off topic. I had a point and it was that I still get those dreams as an adult every now and again. I never actually wake up to find I’ve peed the bed (thank god) although I have very slightly poo-ed the bed once when I was very sick and I have to say there was no fucking warning dream for that! Sorry, too much information, I know, I’ll carry on with my bed-wetting dream story (cos that’s sooooo much better). But yes, the body seems quite good and interrupting the usual programming to tell you you need to get the fuck out of bed to relieve your bladder. It’s right too. Every time I wake up in a panic thinking I’m going to have some ‘splaining to do, I never actually do but I definitely need to go pee. It’s a handy little alarm system really.

I think I have a bit of a weird relationship with my bed and sleeping in general. I always, always, always have to sleep with a doona/blanket/duvet/whatever you call it in your country of origin/residence. This is regardless of how hot it might be. In Sydney, we’re currently experiencing one of our hottest summers on record (in over a century, I believe). Yesterday was the hottest day in I don’t know how long. Yesterday and today were both 36 degrees (you Americans can figure that shit out yourselves as punishment for Trump). It’s fucking HOT AS BALLS (a ridiculous phrase seeing as balls are biologically designed to keep cool) down here and yet I had to sleep with at least a piece of myself under the doona. Hell, I started off with the whole of myself under there because that’s the only way I can fall asleep. I weirdly don’t feel safe otherwise.

My child mind is convinced that whatever grim creatures slither out into the darkness when the lights go off will only be able to grab me if I’m not under the doona. Cos that’s how night time works. Blankets are your protection, your talisman against unwanted advances from the Boogie Man. And, fucking idiot that I am, I listen to my child mind and say, ‘Yes, that makes total sense. Let’s sleep under this fucking doona in close to 40 degree heat (we have no aircon, just a stupid fan that circulates the hot air and fucks with my sinuses) because monsters will get us otherwise and – fuck it – I grew up in Jamaica, what’s a bit of night time roasting if it means you don’t get snatched by the demon from Paranormal Activity?’

I grew up on a steady diet of Stephen King and horror movies. My mother, in her infinite wisdom, said all those terrible thing floating around in my head would come back and bite me on the ass (or something to that effect). As usual, I knew better… Until my mum moved to a separate house about 10 – 15mins walk away and I was left alone (aside from my step brother who I hardly spoke to and was never there). Oh boy did I regret all those scary movies and stories then. Sweet baby Jesus. That house could be super scary at night – creaky stairs, roaming dogs on loose rocks. Any sudden noise and I was convinced it was the end. And you’ve never seen darkness ’til you’ve lived in a rural area. There were no street lights nearby so, when it got dark, it got dark. None of that nice city light pollution to keep things from absolute devil’s asshole blackness.

Funny thing was, I was never scared of a human intruder (you know, something that can actually happen). Your garden variety thief, rapist or murderer didn’t rate on my scale of scary. For me, it was always the supernatural that frightened the crap out of me. Not vampires because they were sexy (I also liked Anne Rice, I think Lestat was my first love) but my memory could conjure up plenty of other evil night demons based on the pages and pages of horror stories I read over the years.

One of the scariest things I’ve ever read was a short story by Stephen King called The Road Virus Travels North. I must’ve been about 24 or 25 and it TERRIFIED me. I don’t even know why. When you think of the plot like a rational human being, it’s not all that scary.

In a nutshell:

Man goes to garage sale

Man buys drawing of monster driving car (first mistake: ignores warning about the scary history of the artist)

Drawing changes as monster now drives to meet him, killing everyone he holds dear along the way (including his poor old grandmother – wtf!)

Monster finds man

Monster kills man.

See, when it’s laid out like that it, it’s not too terrifying. It’s just all the horrible details King adds and his wonderful/terrible way of telling it. This story struck a nerve with me, maybe because the dude knew he was going to die and could do nothing about it. Even with the passage of so many years, I’m still a bit worried when recounting this story. It still freaks me out even though the rational part of my brain knows it’s not real.

After that, I kind of swore off horror. I decided a grown woman shouldn’t put herself in a situation where she needs to sleep with the light on, like a fucking child. Time passed and I thought I was a grown up so I saw Paranormal Activity at the movies with my mum and sister. BIG MISTAKE. My nerves were shot afterwards and it didn’t help that mum jumped out from around a corner and frightened the crap out of me as we were leaving the theatre. I went home and literally slept with the light on for a week. Every noise terrified me. I was often too scared to sleep – or even sleep facing away from the bedroom door – until Jared got home from work. It was that bad.

After that, he kind of put a ban on me. I couldn’t be trusted to act like a rational human being with a FAKE MOVIE about IMAGINARY and IMPOSSIBLE SHIT so I was not to watch these movies any more. Stephen King wasn’t writing any scary books so I was safe from temptation in that respect. Years went by. A few people asked me to see the various sequels for Paranormal Activity and I said, ‘Not a fucking chance in hell’. I even skip the station when the trailer comes on for a scary movie or TV series. I close my eyes and block my ears when it happens at the movies.

And then The Witch came out. The reviews were good. They said it was ‘different’ and ‘feminist’ so I was intrigued. We went to see it and I was fine (although I did close my eyes towards the end when it got a bit scary – Jared had to fill me in on what happened). ‘Maybe I’m cured,’ I thought. ‘Maybe I’m a big kid now.’ These were the optimistic thoughts floating round in my head when I decided to watch American Horror Story last weekend. After a few episodes of the first season (the one about the haunted/murder house), Jared exercised his right to veto, throwing in a ‘are you sure you should be watching this?’. I was pretty into the storyline but we found something else and all was well – except, in the back of my mind, I felt a little bit afraid. Just a little but enough to know I’d probably made a grave error.

And so it happened that, when I woke up this morning, it was the perfect storm for all my fears to come flooding back. Jared had already left for the day (I was alone, aside from the useless dogs) and the curtains were drawn in the dining room (so the apartment was nearly pitch black, with plenty of dark pockets for something to hide in). Usually, we leave the blinds open so the whole apartment is quite bright of a morning but not today. And, of course, my mind started whispering about the creature maybe/probably/definitely lurking by the couch – all sharp toothed and bloody mouthed – just waiting for me to make a noise/get out of bed so it can run in eat me/kill me then eat me/steal my soul/do whatever the fuck it is that monster do. Fuck fuck fuck! Fuck you American Horror Story and fuck me too for thinking I was adult enough to watch scary stuff again. God-fucking-dammit.

Let’s take a breath.

Obviously, I’m writing this now so there were no monsters, bloody mouthed or otherwise. Eventually I found the courage to scurry out and turn on all the lights before opening the curtains, all the while expecting something horrific to sink its teeth into my calf, ankle, neck, whatever. Nothing did. I survived. And now I’m thinking… maybe I can watch American Horror Story after all… I mean, I’m ok now, right?

I am 100% still afraid of the dark. Not every night, just from time to time, something will spook me and my imagination will kick into overdrive and I’ll imagine terrible things lurking in the dark around me.

I read A LOT of Stephen King and watched A LOT of horror movies in my teens and twenties and my mum always said it would catch up with me. Well, fuck, turns out she was right. It has and it sucks. The things I imagine stalking me in the dark are pretty terrifying and also incredibly irrational for someone my age. At 31, I really should know better but… NOPE. “Fuck that”, says my brain.

So, what happens now is that I leave the light on until the fear subsides or I fall asleep and my partner comes home. I then get teased mercilessly about what a chicken I am. Which, really, is fair enough. This is some pretty childish shit going on here.

I made the mistake of watching Paranormal Activity a few years back and I couldn’t turn the light off for about a week. I lay awake in terror every night my boyfriend worked. I have to close my eyes during horror movie trailers for fear I’ll see something that will come back to terrorise me later. It’s ridiculous.

And even as I feel myself getting scared, I KNOW how stupid it is. It’s nothing “rational” like the fear of getting raped or even robbed or murdered by a — shock horror — human being. It’s always some crazy demon or supernatural creature that only the most fucked up of minds could imagine. Whhhhyyyyyyy???

Although, I did get terrible nightmares after watching a doco on the BTK serial killer… So there’s that. It seems my fascination for the dark side has some not-so-nice consequences. Seems all this death and despair sits around fermenting in your brain and then makes some pretty nasty moonshine.

So that’s me tonight. 2.54am and I’m trying to delay sleep because every creak in the house is a fucking hell monster coming to get me. Hope your Saturday night is panning out better.